


to set yourself on fire

by waferkya



Category: The Resident (TV 2018)
Genre: Car Accidents, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Medical Jargon, Medical Procedures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-31
Updated: 2018-05-31
Packaged: 2019-05-16 13:47:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14812509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waferkya/pseuds/waferkya
Summary: “I’m very sorry. We’ve had a few—ah—situations here, in the past few days… and we had to enforce a strict family-only rule.”Devon can understand that. But he also understands himself, and he knows that if he doesn’t see Conrad right away, he’ll never be at peace. Knowing this, Devon thinks that in a couple million of years he might probably forgive himself for the lie that comes out of his mouth next.in which Conrad is in pain, Devon tells a lie, and they learn that things have to fall apart before they can come together.





	to set yourself on fire

**Author's Note:**

> this is how i wish episode 1x09 went. *BIG SIGH*
> 
> WARNING!!!  
> this story is about the aftermath of a car accident / it contains mentions of pretty brutal physical injuries / detailed descriptions of a body in recovery / and a happy ending :)

Conrad is late for work and they’re all going a little crazy with worry. It would be weird any other day of the week, but today it’s downright terrifying, because this is the morning after Lily died.

Devon is doing his rounds but his head’s not in it; he keeps checking his watch, checking the door, checking the hallway, hoping to see a mop of half-damp blond hair appear behind a corner. Devon never realized how much Conrad’s presence fills the space around him, until he was all alone in a patient’s room.

Irving is playing jenga with pill bottles. Bradley took over clinic duty to distract himself. Jude has come down six times already and with increasingly lame excuses, only to see if Conrad showed up. Mina got herself benched again, then she went downstairs to the waiting room in the hall, and sat there pretending she’s not staring at the entrance waiting for Conrad.

Out of all of them, Nic is the only one keeping it together. Devon finds himself gravitating towards her, hoping to get influenced by her professionalism. He mimics her stern expression, pours over the same case files she does. He veers clear of coffee and sugary treats, he does everything perfectly. But it’s not working.

Nic gets called upstairs. She’s gone for less than half an hour, and comes back pale and shaking.

“What’s wrong?” Devon asks, already with a pit in his chest where is heart is supposed to be.

He starts breathing again when he understands that Nic looks like that out of anger, not fear; the board questioned her about Lily’s death and she’s had to defend herself, and now she feels powerless and furious and she wanted to spit in their faces but she couldn’t.

Devon doesn’t think twice before pulling her into a hug. She holds onto him hard enough that his ribs hurt; Nic stops shaking, then takes a step back and rubs a hand over her face.

“We need to make them see that this was Hunter’s fault,” she says, and if she was determined before, now she’s adamant. Devon nods, a little intimidated.

Then, his pager beeps. It’s the CEO’s office.

*

On his bus ride to Grady, Devon feels detached from himself.

The city outside his window passes in a blur, traffic is background noise, and the talkative man two rows down feels like a completely different life form. The only reason Devon doesn’t miss his stop is because the app he used for directions chimes with a notification, reminding him to _get off in three hundred yards._

 _One hundred and fifty yards._

 _Twenty yards._

 _Turn right and walk across the parking lot for three minutes._

 _You have reached your destination._

Devon kills the app, then turns his phone on silent. His hands are shaking and it takes him three tries.

He’s never been to Grady Memorial Hospital before, but the moment he steps through the sliding doors, his feet take him to the reception desk before his brain even registers the space around him. Hospitals are all designed to look basically the same. Devon knows that the choice is meant to be comforting—so that you don’t feel lost and disoriented when you’re already going through possibly the worst day of your life—but he can’t help it, he finds it maddening.

“Hi,” he says, and when the receptionist immediately looks at his breast-pocket, he realizes he never took off his Chastain ID. “I’m looking for Conrad Hawkins, I was told he is a patient here. It’s H-a-w-k-i-n-s?”

Quick, deft fingers tap away at the keyboard, and a few seconds later the receptionist even manages to look apologetic as he says, “He’s in the ICU.”

Devon’s heart sinks to the bottom of the universe; he nods and pushes off the reception desk, already eyeing the elevators.

*

ICU is not good. Of course, Devon knows that in hospitals, nothing except ‘friends and family waiting room’ is ever good, but ICU? ICU takes the gold at the Being Not-Good-At-All Olympics. In the elevator and all the way through the third floor, Devon is running a thousand ifs in his head, rare conditions overlapping with terrifying diseases melting into weird infections mutating together with strange reactions to broad-spectrum antibiotics.

This is all kind of new for him: Devon belongs to that rare class of doctors who decided to go into medicine out of the blue, not because they had a parent who died from cancer or a sibling who was miraculously saved by science. Nobody among his friends and family has ever been sick or injured enough to require more than a very tedious trip to the ER; his mother’s father was the only grandparent he had left and he died peacefully in his sleep, at home.

Devon knows grief, and he’s used to the anxiety and responsibility of being a doctor, but he doesn’t know how to be _friends and family_.

He sees Conrad’s father talking to a doctor and stops, uncertain what to do. He expected to be the only person here; of course, that was a stupid thought. All of a sudden, Devon feels embarrassed, like he’s intruding. This is a family matter, and who is he to stake a claim and be here? Christ, they should’ve sent Nic. Even _Mina_ would’ve been a better choice.

Devon’s phone vibrates in his pocket. Mrs. Thorpe asked him to keep this quiet, at least until he can report some bulletproof information, but they must’ve noticed his absence at Chastain. They were bound to; it’s the morning after Lily died, the day when Conrad didn’t show up for work, and Devon left in the middle of his shift.

He talks himself into thinking he’s only here to report to the others: this is how he’s able to put together enough courage to come forward.

Conrad’s father looks at him with apparent distaste, like he thinks it’s terrible manners that someone from Chastain would show up here, but Devon focuses on the doctor. Her white coat is embroidered with the name _Alexandra Lopez_ , and she looks barely older than Conrad.

Her words hanging halfway between Mr. Winthrop and Devon, Dr. Lopez asks: “And this is…?”

Devon doesn’t say, _A co-worker who’s not even entirely sure he can call himself a friend._

Instead, he deflates a little and says: “I’m a friend.”

Dr. Lopez’s eyes run from Devon’s distraught face to Winthrop’s angry frown; she’s assessing them. After a moment, she nods and checks her file.

“As I was telling Mr. Winthrop—”

“I’m sorry,” Devon says, because this is driving him insane. “I don’t even know what happened.”

Dr. Lopez looks at him, and she’s not exactly warm but not distant either; now that he looks at her, Devon sees the telltale signs of a fellow doctor fighting to stay alert only on coffee crystals and sheer force of will. Something inside him loosens, just a little, because he likes Conrad’s doctor.

“He was in an accident, Dr. Pravesh,” Dr. Lopez says in the soft voice they teach you to use to talk to civilians, and Devon lifts his hand to finally pick the Chastain ID off his chest. “He’d been out jogging, but as he was waiting at a stoplight, a car ran him over.”

Devon cringes. “Broken ribs?”

“Cracked L-10, and some bruised cartilage. None of his internal organs have suffered any significant damage that we can see,”—Devon nods along, his brain running two hundred miles a minute; organs can fail up to 72 hours after impact, close observation is necessary—“But it’s the pelvis that suffered most of the trauma.”

It takes a moment for Devon to take in this new piece of information. He furrows his brow, “What are we talking about? Hipbones, coccyx… what?”

Out the corner of his eye, Devon notices the uncomfortable expression on Winthrop’s face. He must’ve heard all of this before; it can’t be good.

Dr. Lopez goes for the path of least resistance; instead of using her words, she picks an X-Ray out of Conrad’s file and shows it to Devon. He lifts it against the light, which isn’t even close to the proper way of consulting an X-Ray print, but, _holy shit_.

He understands why Dr. Lopez decided to show him the picture instead of talking about the state of Conrad’s pelvis, because the only word Devon can think of right now is _shattered_. And that’s not the kind of thing you should say to _friends and family_.

“What the fuck,” Devon says under his breath. He hands the X-Ray back, reluctantly. Dr. Lopez looks pitying and empathetic.

“According to witnesses, after the car ran him over with one tire… it kept going.”

“Have you had to operate?”

Dr. Lopez shakes her head. “Despite everything, the fractures are clean. We’ll see how they do on their own.”

“How is he holding up? He doesn’t do too well with opioids, they… they make him sick.”

Dr. Lopez looks at her feet for a second, and Devon doesn’t get the sudden spike of awkwardness. His doctor-sense is screaming, bracing for the worst possibilities—

“He hasn’t woken up,” Winthrop barks, and his voice is rougher than Devon expected. “He went under at the scene, and never woke up. They have no idea why.” He turns to Dr. Lopez and says, “I can trust that you’ll call me with any news?”

Dr. Lopez nods and holds out her hand, but Winthrop is already walking away from them, a couple of bodyguards appearing out of nowhere to flank him at a respectful distance. He must really hate it when people can see his weakness.

Devon is still gaping, scared and confused. A brain bleed from blunt-force trauma is the opposite of unheard of, but the doctors would’ve found it in a matter of seconds. A pre-existing condition that was triggered by the accident?

Dr. Lopez can tell that Devon is going down the rabbit hole, and she puts a hand over his arm to pull him out.

“He’s very strong,” she says.

Devon doesn’t say, _You have no fucking idea_. Instead, he can barely ask:

“Can I see him?”

Dr. Lopez shakes her head.

“I’m very sorry. We’ve had a few—ah—situations here, in the past few days… and we had to enforce a strict family-only rule.”

Devon can understand that. But he also understands himself, and he knows that if he doesn’t see Conrad—if he doesn’t get a look at his ECG and EEG, if he doesn’t check first-hand that Conrad’s lower limbs are still responsive, if he doesn’t put his own hands on Conrad’s body to feel it warm and breathing and alive—he’ll never be at peace.

Knowing all this, Devon thinks that in a couple million of years he might probably forgive himself for the lie that comes out of his mouth next:

“I’m his boyfriend,” he says, hoping that Dr. Lopez reads his embarrassment as grief, or worry, or anxiety—which are also all things that Devon is feeling anyway. “I didn’t say anything because… well, you’ve seen his father… he doesn’t know. Please.”

Dr. Lopez looks at him for a very long time; Devon has no idea whether or not she caught his lie, but eventually, she takes a step back and gestures to the entrance of the ICU wing.

“Thank you,” Devon says, sounding just like any of the spouses he’s ever encountered at Chastain.

“Just do me a favor and don’t go raiding our painkiller cabinet,” Dr. Lopez says, sounding tired. Devon infers that must be the kind of ‘situation’ she mentioned earlier. He nods, feeling oddly numb, and then he’s walking inside Conrad’s room—which is actually a room, with walls and windows and a door, and this is probably the best treatment that money can buy.

Conrad looks—there’s no other word to describe it—like a wreck. He has an oxygen mask on, his skin is bluish-white and clammy; half his face is covered with an angry bruise, a deep cut slices his forehead open and stops right above his eye. Devon walks up to the bed and doesn’t resist the urge to put his hand over Conrad’s arm and gently squeeze. Nothing magical happens; Conrad’s eyes don’t flutter open at the miraculous touch of Devon’s skin. But at least he’s real, and Devon’s heart, which has lodged itself firmly down his throat, eases its beating a little.

When he feels he’s drunk in enough of Conrad, Devon lets his eyes wander over the machines. He doesn’t read anything out of the ordinary; which is alarming on its own, because then, why the fuck is he not waking up?

“I’ve heard of Chastain,” Dr. Lopez says; Devon almost jumps out of his skin, he forgot she was even in the room. “It’s the best hospital in town.”

“I think you’re giving us a run for our money.”

Dr. Lopez smiles, but doesn’t acknowledge the compliment. She steps closer to Conrad’s bed, looking wistful.

“The ambulance was taking him to Chastain, they were four, five minutes out. But from what I hear, his father moved _mountains_ to have him brought here instead. I couldn’t understand why,” she says; she looks at Devon’s hand, still holding onto Conrad, and smiles a little. “I don’t think you’re hiding it as well as you think. I’m sorry.”

Devon can feel his cheeks burn; it’s too late now to take back his lie, isn’t it? So he lets Dr. Lopez walk out of the room still convinced that he and Conrad are together.

“I’ll burn in hell,” Devon whispers, but he grabs a chair from the corner and settles in next to Conrad. “C’mon, wake up. You’ll find this entire situation hilarious.”

Conrad doesn’t even stir in his deep, deep sleep.

*

Devon cuts that first visit relatively short. He avoids Dr. Lopez on his way out, and reports back to Chastain. Everyone reacts the way he’d expected: Mina frowns, Irving has to sit down, Bradley chugs an entire can of Red Bull to keep himself from feeling anything except stomach burn, and Nic immediately starts firing a hundred thousand questions at him.

“Yes, I checked his toes—they were warm, perfectly good blood flow. No, no signs of damage to the internal organs yet, but I left my page number with the nurse, if anything happens I’ll be—”

“Which nurse?” Nic asks, and she’s very intense and a little terrifying. Devon is scared of giving the wrong answer.

“I don’t know, I don’t remember her name—you know the nurses at Grady?”

Nic shakes her head. “I mean, was it the head nurse? Was it a nurse who’d just started her shift? Was it just one random nurse who happened to drop by Conrad’s room?”

“I left my page number with all the nurses at the desk, I taped it to the headboard of Conrad’s bed, and I wrote it on his chart,” Devon says, biting his tongue to keep himself from saying, _I’m not an idiot_. This is a difficult situation for everyone, he understands Nic’s anxiety.

Nic seems to understand him too, and she deflates a little, looking sheepish.

“Thank you. I’m sorry,” she says, and then she hugs him, tight and rib-bruising, and quick as it happened the hug is over and she’s back in fully professional mode.

Devon blinks, confused and surprised.

For the rest of the shift, Devon is completely useless. He can’t stop thinking about the fact that Conrad is in a fucking coma. What if he wakes up and nobody is there with him? Even worse: what if he wakes up and he’s with his father? Devon doesn’t know much about their relationship but, from what he’s seen, it mustn’t be idyllic.

It’s the first time in his life that work hasn’t been able to keep his mind off of something, and Devon doesn’t like it.

At the nurses station, he bumps elbows with a guy from administration. Eric, maybe? Devon vaguely remembers him from his early—well, earlier—days at Chastain, when they still hadn’t learnt how to spell his last name and he had to go upstairs and ask them to fix everything: from his ID badge to the parking permit to his custom e-mail.

Today, Eric looks a little bit frantic.

“Didn’t Dr. Trelby take a seminar in ophthalmology last year?” he asks one of the nurses. “I remember, he sent us a bunch of receipts.”

The nurse levels a pretty murderous look at him. “One seminar doesn’t make him an ophthalmologist, he can’t cover for Dr. Jordan indefinitely.”

Eric pouts. He’s tinkering on a spreadsheet with the entire hospital staff’s working schedules. Eric notices that Devon is stealing glances at his tablet; he looks up and smiles.

“Hey, Dr. Pravesh,” he says, with textbook-perfect pronunciation. “How are you holding up?”

Devon shrugs, vague; he’s distracted. An idea is shaping up in his head.

“You’re working on everyone’s rota?” Devon asks, trying to sound casual.

Eric nods. “Trying to soften the blow of Dr. Hawkins’s absence,” he says, apologetic.

“I see. I’m sorry, but it’s probably best I tell you this right now—I’ve asked to have a few days off as well.”

Eric looks like the rug was pulled from under him. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sorry, yeah. I already put in the request,” Devon says, which is one more lie to add to the list. Eric deflates a little.

“Okay. No, please, don’t be sorry. It’s good you told me right now, before I made any definite changes,” Eric says, swiping left and right on his spreadsheet. “Frankly, I was going to put most of the burden of covering for Conrad on you. You know all his patients, you’ve been doing great work… but it’s okay, it’s good that I know it early if you’re unavailable too.”

“It’s a family emergency,” Devon says, weakly.

“Please, stop. Let me worry about it,” Eric says, doing his best to look confident even in the face of destruction. He claps Devon on his shoulder and then walks away, hunting for another doctor to sweet talk into doing some extra hours.

Devon breathes out. He checks his watch: the administration office is still open. He runs to the elevator and hopes against all hope that the procedure to claim his vacation days isn’t too hard.

*

Before heading back to Grady, Devon stops by Jude’s apartment. The trauma surgeon looks pale and underfed; there are bluish bruises under his eyes, and ice packs taped to his knees. Jude notices Devon’s curious look:

“I tried to work it out on the treadmill. Should’ve stopped the third time my trainer told me to,” he explains, shrugging. He bends at the waist to grab something by the doorstop, and comes up with a worn-looking satchel.

Devon takes it off his hands and notices that it’s quite heavy. “What’s in here, rocks?”

“Nah, it’s just his hiking boots. He left the bag here last time we were out. Everything’s clean. There’s a couple of tees, sweatpants and khakis, underwear for a week. I threw in some extra socks,” Jude says. Devon nods along, fighting against the thought of Conrad, coming into Jude’s apartment after a day on the mountains, dirty and exhausted, and leaving behind a miniature closet.

“Thanks,” he says, honestly grateful.

“Yeah, of course. I have to be at work in thirty minutes, then I have a round of interviews around town but I’ll try and stop by when I get off.”

Devon blushes and doesn’t say anything about the family-only policy; maybe Conrad will be out of the ICU by the time everyone starts showing up to visit.

Instead he says, “It’s classic Conrad, picking the busiest possible time to get in an accident.”

Jude actually laughs out at that, and Devon smiles a little as well.

“Thank you for taking care of that bastard,” Jude says. Devon nods and immediately gets out of there.

*

He takes a quick shower at home, grabs a few extra clothes for himself, his tablet and some books; then he drives into Grady Memorial Hospital, takes the elevator up to Conrad’s room, and the trip already feels familiar.

First, he checks Conrad’s health extensively. Muscle tone, breathing sounds, heartbeat rhythm, oxygen saturation, EEG, everything looks strong and steady; the cut on his forehead is healing nicely, the angry bruises on his face already discoloring to lighter purples and greens. It takes him a moment before he has the courage to lift the sheet and look at the state of Conrad’s lower torso. He’s wearing plain black, baggy boxers, and from his waist to his thighs he’s a mess of bruises and cuts, still swollen and tender and a little shapeless. The imprint of a large tire tread is still visible, a pattern of grooves and lugs hugging Conrad’s left hip at an angle and disappearing just before his spine.

Devon feels sick; anger begins pooling low in his stomach, but he puts his gloved hands on Conrad’s sensitive skin, looking for signs of internal damage and finding none. Through the glass wall, he catches one of the nurses staring at him and looking offended, the same way he would if someone went over his work looking for mistakes. But this is Conrad, and professional courtesy can fuck itself.

After the exam, Devon settles down in a chair and catches up on all the reading he hasn’t done since he started working at Chastain. It’s very peaceful, and if it weren’t for the fact that his boss is in a mysterious form of coma, Devon might even enjoy this.

Throughout the day Conrad exhibits signs of discomfort only once. Devon noticed that his temperature has been steadily rising for a few hours, just a fraction of a degree at a time; but suddenly it spikes up, Conrad’s blood pressure is through the roof and he’s seizing.

Devon finds he can’t stand up from his chair. His legs are frozen and he can’t think. He knows there’s a procedure for this—he knows it exists, he even knows it’s somewhere inside his head, but he can’t find it. He can’t put words together. All he can do is stare as Conrad thrashes in his sheets, still unconscious, and tears out his IV-line.

After a second, there’s blood everywhere.

Dr. Lopez runs into the room within the minute, followed by three nurses. She barks orders, quick and efficient. One nurse takes care of the ripped line, another pushes in a sedative. It works, Conrad stops thrashing, his BP slows down, and he lies still on the bed.

His BP keeps slowing down. It’s dropping. Dr. Lopez curses under her breath and calls in a shock cart. The paddles are ready but Dr. Lopez is doing CPR on Conrad’s chest, and after a terrifying moment, it starts working.

The machines stop their deafening beeping and the room grows quiet. The cart is wheeled out. Devon is still in his chair.

“Does he have a history of epilepsy?” Dr. Lopez asks him.

Devon looks up at her, gaping.

“Huh?” he says, and he realizes just now that his eyes are wet with tears.

Dr. Lopez bites her bottom lip; she walks up to Devon and puts a hand on his shoulder.

“He’s okay now,” she says. The soft, reassuring Doctor-voice is back in full force, and Devon is surprised to find out that it works like a charm. Still, he can’t take his eyes off of Conrad’s frame: he’s back to resting, now, like nothing happened. Devon wants to punch his perfect, bruised face.

“What—I’m sorry. What did you just ask me?”

“Do you know if he has had seizures, in the past?”

“No!”

“You don’t know, or he didn’t…?”

“He’s not epileptic,” Devon says. He would know. _Nic_ would know, and she would’ve told him. “This is all… completely absurd.”

Dr. Lopez nods. “Alright. Unfortunately, seizures are fairly common, after a traumatic brain injury. And the persistent unconscious state he’s in is a complication.”

“He’s at risk for a vasospasm or an aneurysm,” Devon hears himself saying, before his conscious brain can quite catch up. Dr. Lopez smiles a little bit.

“Welcome back, Doctor. I fear he might be, yes. We’ll do some tests,” she says.

“Thank you.”

“And I’ll call his father—”

“ _Thank you_ ,” Devon says, and Dr. Lopez smiles at the sentiment.

“It’s fine. But in the mean time… you should see someone. You’ve been here all day, and I don’t think you intend to leave any soon,” she says, nodding to the bag of clothes Devon clumsily hid behind a potted plant. “We have a great counselor, he’s right upstairs. It’d do you good, to talk to someone who isn’t me, or a nurse.”

“Or comatose,” Devon adds without thinking. Dr. Lopez doesn’t comment; she excuses herself out of the room and suddenly, Devon is once again alone with Conrad.

Finally, Devon leaves the chair and walks up to the bed. His fingers are drawn to the band-aid on the inside of Conrad’s elbow, where he ripped out his IV-line. Devon gently traces the outline of the plaster, moving back to feel the soft skin around it. He moves further down, wrapping his fingers around Conrad’s wrist, and for a moment he closes his eyes, listening at his heartbeat.

Steady and strong, it drums through the pads of Devon’s fingers and it sounds like a promise: _I’ll wake up soon, don’t worry, get back to work_. He smiles to himself, because he can hear Conrad’s voice perfectly inside his head.

Eventually, Devon looks at his face. Under the bruises and the injuries, Conrad looks peaceful but rugged. His cheeks and collarbones stick out more than usual, his hair is sticking out in every direction.

Without thinking, Devon brushes his hair back with his fingers, trying to copy from memory Conrad’s artfully tousled look and doing a pretty decent job, if he can say so himself. The nurses brought in a shaving kit, earlier this morning, but he doesn’t touch that. He quite likes the rougher blond stubble framing Conrad’s strong jaw and his lips.

Devon adjusts the length of the strap on his oxygen mask, and with his thumb he tries to ease out a slight crease that the plastic created around Conrad’s mouth.

He feels dazed and strangely hypnotized. Some part of him is screaming for him to lay down next to Conrad and go to sleep there, close and comfortable and protective.

“What the fuck,” Devon whispers to himself. He gives in to the weird magnetic pull that Conrad seems to have on him, even if it’s just a little: he leans in and kisses his forehead, careful not to bother the stitches or the bruises.

This time, too, nothing magical happens.

Except maybe the fact that Devon doesn’t leave the hospital for the next three days.

*

Devon spends the first night in the chair; he can’t sleep for more than ten minutes at a time, simultaneously stuck in the chair and hunt by the feeling he’ll fall off of it.

The next morning he’s cranky and in pain, and even though he’s doing his best to hide it, Dr. Lopez orders him to take a nap in one of the empty on-call rooms scattered through the floor. Devon looks devastated at the idea of leaving Conrad’s side, and she has to swear on her medical license that she’ll have a nurse wake him up immediately, whatever happens.

Devon ends up sleeping for three hours and a half, because Conrad is perfectly still and healthy—except for the fact that he’s still in a coma.

The only relevant thing that happened while he was out cold, is that Nic and Jude stopped by for a visit. Dr. Lopez would’ve probably let them in, but she was on another floor, with another patient. Instead, they run into her supervisor, who’s apparently a worse dick than Dr. Bell.

“He asked if we were family members,” Nic tells Devon over the phone, sounding upset and angry. “And when Jude told him he was in the Marines with Conrad, that asshole actually _scoffed_ at him. Can you imagine?”

“I’m so sorry,” Devon says, rubbing sleep out of his eyes and staring at Conrad. He’s actually relieved that Nic didn’t get to see him like this; the bruises are in that phase were they look much worse before they start healing for good.

“I didn’t mention you,” Nic says. “I don’t know how you got in, but I thought it was best not to draw attention to you.”

“They run that ICU like Fort Knox, man,” Jude interjects, slightly distant. “What the fuck.”

“Yeah, I know,” Devon says. He really hopes they don’t ask him in detail how he got permission to stay with Conrad. “I’ll keep you updated if anything changes. With Conrad, or with the administration, I mean.”

“Yeah. Let’s hope he wakes up soon,” Nic says, before goodbyes.

Devon hangs up feeling dirty and guilty as shit. He hasn’t told them about the seizure—he figured, why have them worry? Conrad didn’t have another crisis and all his scans were clean. They’ll have to wait until he’s awake to check if he suffered any long-term damage. He simply though he would spare Nic and Jude the thought, the paranoia, the fear, as long as possible.

Devon feels himself blush.

This is the kind of decision that actual family members—actual spouses—make about their loved ones. He can’t help but feel even more of an imposter; in real life, the one where Conrad isn’t lying comatose on a bed and Devon hasn’t fallen for some kind of attraction-spell, he’s not even sure he can consider himself one of Conrad’s friends. They’re colleagues, they have a rough kind of respect for one another, but they’ve known each other for an insignificant amount of time compared to the other people in Conrad’s life.

He went to war with Jude. He used to be with Nic. And yet, out of all the people in the world, it’s Devon who showed up at his bedside and made up a lie just so he could stay.

Devon drags his chair closer to the bed and rests his head on the mattress, pushing against the cool skin of Conrad’s forearm.

“You’re driving me crazy,” he says. He can’t see that Conrad’s eyes, still closed, move sharply in the direction of his voice.

*

When Conrad begins to wake up, Devon is asleep next to his bed in an armchair they dragged in yesterday from the luxury waiting room on the fifth floor. He has a book spread over his face and his mouth hangs slightly open.

It’s early morning, before dawn. The hospital is completely silent, and Conrad wakes up like a fairy tale: tiny eye movements, then a shivering of the eyelids, then a little fluttering, and finally, a slight moan suppressed by the oxygen mask, and his big grey-green eyes are open and attentive, staring at the ceiling.

Conrad is finally waking up and Devon—Devon who burnt through all his vacation days sitting in this room because he wanted to be here for this moment—is passed out, too exhausted to hear the change in Conrad’s beeping EEG, too worn-out to feel Conrad’s burning eyes on him.

He only jolts awake when the heart-rate monitor lets out an angry, scary, continuous bleep.

“Code Blue,” Devon rasps, still asleep; but when his eyes focus on the world at large, he sees Conrad trying to sit up. He unhooked his sensors and his oxygen, but he’s starting to regret it: vertigo, dizziness, shortage of breath, and a blinding pain wash over him.

“Fuck you, stay down,” Devon says, pushing him down with a gentle hand to the sternum. It’s a testament to Conrad’s state of health, how easily he goes down, limp and pliant. Devon puts the oxygen mask back in front of his face and Conrad grabs it with both hands.

His eyes are scared wide, watery and fretting. Devon wants to die. He puts his hand around Conrad’s head, absent-mindedly stroking his hair.

“It’s okay. Hey, hi, you’re fine, it’s all good,” Devon says, his ear trained on the steadying rhythm of Conrad’s breathing.

Only now Devon realizes there’s two nurses and a worried-looking resident in the doorway, hesitant to come in. He locks eyes with the resident and nods; _we’re all good, here_. The nurses back away slowly, but the resident comes in, checking the monitors.

Even in the state he’s in, Conrad gives the too-elegant-looking resident his worst possible stink eye. Devon bites back a laugh.

“You were in an accident, Mr. Hawkins,” the resident says, matter-of-factly, and reattaches the sensors to Conrad’s chest. “You’ve been asleep for a while. I have to check your eyes, please.”

Conrad lets the resident prod and poke at him as he wishes; finally, when nothing seems out of place and the resident is about to leave, he carefully lifts the oxygen mask off his face and very slowly says:

“It’s Doctor.”

Devon laughs so hard that he starts to cry. He sits down, automatically back into the chair that has been there for him all these days. His chest is heaving, and Devon vaguely wonders how can he be having a panic attack out of relief. He hides his face in his hands and lets it all out; he feels Conrad’s hand on his head, clumsy in its attempt at comfort, and crying melts back into laughing wetly at the irony of the situation.

When he calms down, Devon smiles up at him and fights the urge to punch his wonderful, bruised face.

“How do you feel, Doctor?” he asks, trying not to look too closely into Conrad’s puzzled expression.

“How long was I out?” Conrad asks instead of answering, pulling his oxygen mask off his face. It’s a nice way to not ask: _why are you so hysterical right now?_

“A little over three days,” Devon answers, then he goes to fill up a glass of water which Conrad accepts gratefully. “You—uhm. You had a seizure, early on after the accident.”

Devon is rummaging through his bag; he stopped by the vending machines yesterday—maybe it was three days ago—but now he can’t find his—no, okay, there: he fishes out a chocolate pudding (spoon included) and a pre-packaged tuna sandwich (no napkins), which he puts on the tray in front of Conrad.

“I’m not hungry,” Conrad says with a frown.

“It’s not about nutrition,” Devon says, tapping the metal lid of the pudding. “C’mon.”

“The very nice doctor who dresses like he’s on a runway already cleared me for altered sensorium,” Conrad insists, his eyes crinkling as he insults the resident.

“He cleared your vision and your hearing, temporarily and partially,” Devon points out. “We need taste and smell too, so please. Dive in.”

Conrad has the nerve to start a staring contest, but Devon knows that even he knows that he’s right, so he doesn’t back up. Eventually, it’s Conrad who sighs, and reluctantly nods his agreement.

Devon smiles bright and happy. “Great.”

He grabs the tuna sandwich first, unpacking it in one swift motion. He checks to see if Conrad looks impressed, and feels himself blush when he realizes that, yeah, he is.

He wasn’t lying before: this isn’t about getting fed. So he pulls a corner of the sandwich off, barely enough for a bite, and offers it up to Conrad for him to take it. Conrad lifts his oxygen mask and leans in just enough to take a quick whiff.

“Smells like regular old tuna, soggy bread, and mayo,” he says, clearly unhappy, and snaps the oxygen mask back in place.

Devon nods. “Good.”

His hand stays in the air, expectantly.

Conrad, who is not a very cooperative patient, locks eyes with him, lifts his oxygen mask again, and simply opens his mouth. There’s a smug spark in his eyes, a challenge and a dare. Devon burns red all over, but fuck it, he can be as stubborn as his boss: he actually feeds Conrad the piece of sandwich.

Of course, Conrad closes his mouth too soon. His lips are warm around Devon’s fingers, his tongue comes up to slightly brush against the pad of his thumb. He even stretches out his neck a little, to follow Devon’s retreating hand.

Devon is meditating in his mind, trying to disengage himself from this situation. It’s not working. His body feels hot and very, very much interested.

He clears his throat, hating how desperate and needy he is.

“Good?”

“I’ve had better,” Conrad answers, and he hasn’t stopped staring at Devon for a second.

He makes Devon feed him the pudding too, and it’s absurd how his mouth can look incredible wrapped around the bright orange plastic handle of a miniature spoon.

Conrad grimaces, “Ew, milk chocolate.”

“Sorry, the vending machine was out of bitter 90% cocoa pudding,” Devon says, eating the rest of the pudding himself because he’s not a spoiled brat. Conrad tries to take the tiny plastic container just to spite him, but Devon lifts it out of his reach.

Somehow Conrad managed to get pudding on his fingers, and he licks them clean—Devon is definitely not staring, thank you very much—before asking, “Don’t tell me you actually like that.”

Devon shrugs. “It’s chocolate.”

“You have to have a preference,” Conrad says, sounding a little strange because the oxygen mask is back on.

Devon considers it. “Alright. Then I’ll go with white.”

There’s a beat of silence. Then, Conrad starts smiling, crinkly eyes and all, with a definitely smug and indecent undertone to it. Devon’s heart explodes and he blushes furiously; why is everything sexual, all of a sudden?

“I’m sorry,” Conrad says, when he realizes he’s probably embarrassed Devon more than a single person can handle in a lifetime. “I really am, look, it was a bad joke.”

“No, I served it to you on a silver platter.”

Conrad laughs, a little strained because it’s actually painful for him. “You did. You prefer white? Don’t say shit like that around your girlfriend, man.”

The sudden mention of Priya is enough to sober Devon up completely. He suddenly turns serious, looking at Conrad and letting himself feel the full weight of the past few days.

“I’m glad that you can taste awful milk chocolate,” he says, because anything else would be too much. Too personal, too weird.

Conrad seems to understand. His eyes go soft, his smile more intimate, less cocky and more affectionate. Devon’s heartbeat has a strange, hiccup-y reaction he decides to ignore.

“Thank you for being here,” Conrad says. He’s the one who got ran over by a car but suddenly, Devon feels like a total wreck as well.

*

Doctors have seen it happen: exhausted brains taking the opportunity of a traumatic accident to switch off and rest for a while. Conrad’s brain has every reason to feel abused and overworked, so Devon is not going to hold it against it, but maybe they could’ve negotiated something a little less stressful.

Dr. Lopez looks pleased with Conrad’s progress. She moves him out of the ICU and orders three and a half weeks in bed; if everything inside Conrad heals up nicely, she says, he’ll be allowed to go back home for another ten-to-twelve-days in bed. He should be up and walking with no problems within the spring.

Conrad looks immensely appalled at this prediction, and vows that he’ll be able to beat the times. Dr. Lopez doesn’t seem impressed. Devon likes her more and more by the minute.

“Can I get a transfer to Chastain?” Conrad says; he’s on a light morphine drip but his oxygen mask stays mostly off, stubborn as he is, except for the times when he gets very lightheaded. “At least I can get some work done.”

“Absolutely,” Dr. Lopez says, smiling brightly. “Over my dead body.”

She turns around and steps out of the room without another word.

“I think I like her,” Conrad declares. “Can we steal her?”

“I don’t think she’ll be happier at Chastain,” Devon says honestly from his chair; he’s reading a new medical journal that Dr. Lopez brought him. He feels much better than he did at dawn. He’s not even thinking about Conrad’s mouth and tongue on his fingers—except when he does. And he’s not thinking about Priya and how he stopped calling her after the first night—except when he does.

Tucked inside the medical journal, Dr. Lopez left a hand-written note encouraging him to go see the counselor upstairs. He’s not thinking about really going—except when he does.

Conrad looks thoughtful for a moment. He turns to Devon and says: “You’ve been here a lot.”

“Everyone’s been here a lot. We’re all worried about you.”

“Yes, everyone has been _here_ ,” Conrad says meaningfully. Devon’s ear are burning already, but he schools his features into indifference. He can’t get caught. He can see the wheels turning inside Conrad’s head, and he’s sure he’s about to put the pieces together and see—but suddenly, Conrad shakes his head. “But that’s not what I meant. You should go home.”

“Oh,” Devon says, and he doesn’t know how to tell Conrad that he really, really doesn’t want to leave. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

Conrad lifts an eyebrow and grins. “Probably?”

Devon shakes his head, unwilling to let him win. “I’ll wait till your test results come back, then I’ll go. If that’s alright with you.”

Suddenly Conrad looks very serious when he says, “I’m glad you’re here.”

Devon looks at him over the rim of his magazine. He licks his lips, hesitant. He really wants to do something very stupid.

Instead, he opens his mouth and goes for a joke: “I think you’re having a stroke.”

Conrad laughs and it hurts his ribs a lot. Devon gets up and puts a hand to the back of his neck, holding on and stroking until the worst of the pain passes. Conrad lays back down and looks up at him from under his lashes. His mouth is curled up at the corners, the tiniest and most significant smile he’s ever shown to Devon.

In a fairy tale, this would be the time for a kiss.

Devon blushes and goes back to his chair. He starts reading out loud an article on vaccine development.

*

It’s the first night in more than a week that Devon is back in bed with Priya, and he’s terrified when he realizes he didn’t miss this.

Hidden in the dark, with the smallest voice he’s ever had, he says, “We have to talk.”

*

On his first day back at Chastain, Devon sees Eric from administration in the lobby: he’s up on the balcony, looking down at doctors and nurses coming and going. He spots Devon, smirks a little to himself, then leaves.

Devon is a little freaked out—Eric was clearly waiting for him. The answer to his doubts comes when Devon takes a look at his rota: for the next few days, he’s absolutely swamped. He has three back-to-back shifts in the span of a week.

“Whoa,” Irving says, peering at the board over Devon’s shoulder. “I think that’s practically illegal. You pissed off the wrong guy, my friend.”

“Yeah,” Devon whispers, except he’s secretly relieved. Maybe going off work to look after Conrad was a bad decision. It definitely fucked with his head in ways he can’t roll back anymore. A little stress and chaos will do him good.

The routine of work swallows him whole once again, and the following ten days pass by in a blur. Devon goes to Grady whenever he can, and before he can say ‘post-concussion syndrome’, Conrad is back to regularly eating solid food and Dr. Lopez is forced to admit that he is recovering faster than she expected.

Devon doesn’t have much time on his hands, but when he does, he’s always thinking about Conrad: about his bruises, and the way he’d looked at Devon before wordlessly asking to be fed. He thinks about how readily he offered his hand, letting Conrad lick his fingers and smile up at him with crinkles to his eyes and a light heart.

He thinks about how everything he’s ever learned about medicine flew out of the window the minute it was Conrad in danger, Conrad thrashing with a seizure, Conrad bleeding from a needle-hole on his arm. He thinks about the way panic and fear had ground him, gravity keeping him nailed to that chair, as his brain gasped and struggled and rendered him completely useless.

This experience has made him a better doctor, Devon thinks. He finds himself being more considerate to his patients’ relatives; he spends a fraction of a second to check if the room is clear of civilians before performing any scary-looking procedure and, after, he takes more time to talk to people and explain exactly what happened. Knowledge is scary, but it’s also the only weapon he can offer.

Mina looks at him like he’s a lunatic, but now Nic always has a small smile for him, tucked in the corner of his mouth, so he must be doing something good.

After his shift, he showers in the locker room and gets changed. Then he sits for five minutes on one of the benches, because he has no idea what to do. Conrad was discharged this morning—he rented an electric bed and texted Devon a picture of it parked in the middle of his living room—so he can’t hide at Grady anymore; and he doesn’t want to go home, because Priya will be there to pack her stuff.

He turns his phone in his hands, trying to make up the nerve to call one of his old college buddies asking for a couch to crash. He could ask anyone here, but how would he explain his situation? _I broke up with my girlfriend and living out of a backpack for a few days because I’m in love with someone else; specifically, my boss who just woke up from a weird coma, and I realized I love him because I spent a week by his side, only because I lied to his doctor about the nature of our relationship_ sounds ridiculous, even when he’s just thinking it.

His phone buzzes with a text from Conrad. He just sent him a Google Maps link with directions to his apartment.

It’s all Devon needs, and more than he was hoping for.

*

(One thing Devon doesn’t know:

Nic and Jude went to see Conrad get out of the hospital. They helped him get into Jude’s truck, and then out of it and up the few steps to his building. Nic handled the renting and delivery of the electric bed where Conrad will spend another couple of weeks, and Jude cooked for two hours, prepping enough healthy meals to feed a small army.

Conrad never stopped smiling, even when it became evident that his best friend is in a relationship with his former girlfriend. They were trying to keep it a secret, which is exactly what gave them away.

“I’m fine,” Conrad says, perched on top of his all-new, multifunctional prison cell shaped like a bed. “Guys—you know me, I can’t lie about this stuff.”

“Yeah,” Jude says, eyes narrowed like he’s looking for some sort of clue that inactivity has finally turned Conrad insane. “Which is why I’m worried. I thought you’d be angry. Why aren’t you angry?”

Conrad’s smile is almost blinding. “You haven’t heard? I got a boyfriend now.”)

*

Following Conrad’s instructions, Devon lets himself in using a key lamely hidden under a potted plant. Jude and Nic left it there when they left, for possible future guests.

“Hey,” Conrad says from his bed.

“Hi,” Devon shyly replies; he has a bag of take-out, but Conrad’s apartment is already filled with at least five different amazing food-smells and he feels like an idiot. “I’m sorry, I bought food because I thought—”

“Food is always welcome,” Conrad says, waving him in. “Jude is a freak and he cooked, like, three chickens and a whole farmers’ market. I’d rather eat with you.”

Devon smiles weakly and goes around the bed to put the food down on the kitchen counter. He feels awkward—he’s never been here before, but he likes the place and he would very much like to snoop around, but Conrad is sitting right in the middle of the open plan floor, so he can’t really escape his eyes.

“I’m sorry I can’t give you a tour,” Conrad says, grinning madly. “At least the place is pretty much what you see.”

“I really like it,” Devon says before he can stop himself. Conrad looks pleased.

“You wanna eat right away? You just got off work.”

“Yeah—but I’m not really hungry, I can wait,” Devon says honestly. He pulls a stool from the kitchen counter and goes to sit closer to Conrad. “How are you dealing with all this?”

“Magnificently. I can’t wait to spend another two weeks chained to a bed. Look,” he reaches out with his arm toward a bookcase and says, mock-excitedly, “I can’t even reach my books now!”

Devon laughs despite himself.

“I’m very impressed,” he says, keeping up with the irony.

“What’s up with you?” Conrad says—and he doesn’t sound speculative, just genuinely interested, and yet Devon gets goosebumps, like maybe he has to be extra-careful because something is going on.

He realizes that he has nothing to lose right now, and not much to hide except one silly lie from three weeks ago that he’ll never be caught for.

“Oh, not much. Mina’s in full-on war with Bell, I’m sure you’ve heard.”

Conrad nods and, grinning like a madman, he shows him a picture Mina texted him from her latest surgery; over the perfectly stitched spleen she scribbled, ‘Okafor 6 – HODAD 1’. Devon smiles.

“Yeah. There was a minor flu epidemic among staff, which means double shifts for all of us stupid enough to get vaccinated at the beginning of the season. My girlfriend moved out, and… oh, York came back—this time with his _mom_ , you wouldn’t believe it, she’s adorable.”

“Yeah—I heard about you and Priya.”

That’s not what Devon had expected. “What? From who?”

Conrad grins. “A nurse. Well, nurses, plural. You’re very well liked, Dr. Pravesh.”

“Nurses talk about me?” Devon asks, because he can’t really wrap his head around the concept. Conrad finds it hilarious and he just starts laughing way too hard. “Oh, c’mon, stop laughing, you’ll hurt yourself—”

And hurt himself he does: he still has a cracked rib and too many bruises in and out of his chest. Laughing is painful. Conrad starts wheezing after a minute, and somehow Devon switches to auto-pilot: he’s off the stool and by his side, gently rubbing a soothing hand across his back.

Slowly, Conrad calms down. There are tears in his eyes, but he looks up at Devon, and Devon has been here before. He feels himself blush, and his heart sinks a little because nothing happened last time, and nothing is going to happen this time either.

Except Conrad’s hand comes up and holds his arm, keeping him close.

“Remember when we talked about the fact that you were the only one allowed in the ICU with me?” Conrad says, his voice soft; he looks at Devon through his lashes, and he hasn’t trimmed his stubble, and even with the gash on his forehead still a little visible and promising a scar, he’s never been more beautiful.

“I wasn’t the only one. Your father stopped by a lot, too.”

“I’m glad I didn’t see him,” Conrad says, rolling his eyes.

Devon feels his face turn very hot and very red. From the smug, amused look growing on Conrad’s face, he can tell he’s been made. It probably was Nurse Julian from Grady. That guy’s a sucker for gossip, and beside, Devon could tell right away that he liked Conrad.

An insane sort of jealousy mixed with rage builds up in Devon’s chest at the thought of some nosy nurse trying to break up his non-existent relationship with Conrad.

“Okay, look, it—it was just a small lie,” Devon gives up, because there’s no point in denying anything anymore, if Conrad knows. “It just… came out of nowhere, I really wanted to make sure that you—that you were fine and—I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have.”

Devon breathes in a little easier.

Conrad is smiling his brattiest smile, bright and wide, with his eyes as crinkled as they can be. It’s like finding out that Devon pretended to be his boyfriend for a week is the best gift the universe could give him, which, okay, Devon gets it: eternal mocking material; but there’s something else, and Devon can’t quite put his finger on it.

So he asks: “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Conrad’s tongue joins the party for a split second, peeking out just a little to wet his bottom lip and, coincidentally, light a fire of desperate _want_ deep inside Devon’s belly.

“I want to kiss you,” Conrad says. “And I’m just wondering where you’ll punch me, when I do.”

The first thing Devon notices, is that there are no ifs in that sentence, which is insane. The second thing he notices, is that Conrad’s hand on his arm is tugging him down a little in an invitation he obviously has no intention to deny.

The third thing he notices is that Conrad’s stubble feels amazing rubbing against his clean-shaven face.

The kiss goes on for a while. Devon wants to make sure he knows Conrad’s lips and tongue as well as his own; he wants to taste him and rob him of air and hear him make all sorts of tiny, wet, impatient moans and sounds. When they finally pull apart, Devon has half-climbed over the bed, bracing himself against the lifted mattress with an arm while the other hand is firmly in Conrad’s hair. Conrad’s hands are buried under his shirt, cool and smooth on the overheated skin of his back.

“Fuck,” Devon says, then he steals another quick kiss. Conrad smiles right in the middle of it and it’s the best feeling in the world—it beats doing a perfect central line on the first try ever.

“We’ll do that too, in a while,” Conrad says, bratty as ever.

Devon laughs. “Yeah, I don’t know, I think I should make you earn it.”

“Hey, I’m a wonderful boyfriend. You’ll see.”

Devon blushes and he’s dying of embarrassment, but he manages to say, “Yeah, right. You’re a good boyfriend, when you’re not out getting bulldozed by cars.”

“Twice,” Conrad corrects. Devon rolls his eyes, but his hand—out of its own will, or maybe it’s simply force of habit at this point—reaches out, squeezes Conrad’s, and doesn’t let go.  



End file.
